


back to square one

by shadowstint



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bullshit Science, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Past Allura/Lance (Voltron), Post-Canon, cheesy tropes fest right here, everyone was mentioned but not all had big roles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22831876
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadowstint/pseuds/shadowstint
Summary: When the shuttles entered slowly, chaos occurred faster than what his eyes could see. All he could remember was the teludav shutting down, horrified shouts of panic as the wormhole released an insane amount of power and almost destroyed Pidge's shuttle, almost destroyed her.Red. Everything was red.
Relationships: Lance/Pidge (Voltron), Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	back to square one

**Author's Note:**

> alternative title: she did, he didn't.
> 
> but then i realized that was too 2014 tumblr so here u go.
> 
> also alternative summary: allura is jesus and 2000s romcoms.

Pidge was stubborn.

She was not supposed to enter the Garrison with uneven chopped off hair, her brother's glasses and her mother's confidence then change her name and create a new identity for it was technically against the law.

But she did.

When she finally got a lead into finding her brother, all logic was immediately thrown away as she hopped onto green without hesitation. For practicality and her own safety, Shiro suggested that she shouldn't go alone.

But she did.

Allura's sacrifice left the universe safe but broke the hearts of many. Though, no one was as broken as Lance who mourned alone and specifically told everyone that he _wanted_ to be alone as he tried his hardest not to let anyone break his walls.

But she did, just like what he did to hers when they were only cadets.

A lot could change in three years. Feelings even.

The world had stopped, his feet on the sand and view of the sun setting completely forgotten as he stared at another sunset colored view. Whoever decided that brown wasn't as gorgeous as the other eye colors were either blind or just a whole idiot. All of Lance's life he used to think sunset was the most beautiful view but seeing Pidge's eyes, the sun had some competition.

Their faces were so close that he could see every little freckle on her face. He felt her breath touch his lips and he shivered. His voice came out softer than it should, _"I'm still a mess, Katie. You shouldn't."_

But she did, he was glad she did.

The team found a way to possibly bring Allura back. Laws of physics were hard to battle with but if being a part of Voltron ever taught them anything other than how to be stronger physically and mentally, it was that everything fictional could be turned into reality. So, they figured it out– time travel.

It required several complicated technology. First, a wormhole, then a power crystal, a lot of patience, and some other parts that he completely missed because of so many thoughts clouding his mind.

They were getting Allura back. Seeing her smile wouldn't only just be limited to his dreams now. The thought filled his chest with a familiar warmth, though it felt a little different. It wasn't as strong as when he last had it.

After everything was built, there was one last thing that they needed in order for the plan to succeed.

A team. The standard Garrison flight team, a group of three who would go into the wormhole and execute the plan, travel back in time in their own universe and prevent Allura from sacrificing herself.

A highly dangerous task, not only because they were going to be meddling with the laws of space and time, but also because there was only an 80% chance that the teludav would work. Sure, the Holts have stabilized earth teludavs for travel when it came to distance, but time was another thing. There was still a 20% chance that whoever would enter it may never come back.

No one in the Atlas even bat an eye when Shiro volunteered to be in the mission first. Some showed a look of concern, but there weren't any look of surprise in sight. Then, he asked Keith to come with him, in which he accepted without hesitation. A lot could change in five years, some dynamics stayed the same, though. Lance chuckled to himself.

When Shiro's eyes fell on him, a sense of understanding came through. It made sense for Lance to be a part of the team, he was the closest to Allura next to Coran. He knew what to do and what not to do in order for the mission to succeed.

Out of the corner of his eyes, a familiar small figure stood up before he could even move.

His breath stopped. Most of the time, Pidge showing her daring personality would make butterflies fill Lance's stomach up to his chest. Right then, it made the butterflies tear down his organs.

 _"Pidge, don't."_ He begged, desperately.

But she still did it.

Her calloused hands lacked warmth, but he provided, holding it gently as he watched her chest rise and fall continuously. The cold metal seat beside her bed was rather uncomfortable, but he couldn't care less. Nothing but the humming of machine filled the silence of the infirmary.

God, he missed her voice. He would do anything to hear her laugh, rambles, even her snarky yet endearing remarks again.

 _The moment they turned on the_ _teludav_ _, his gut immediately told him to try and stop_ _the team's shuttles to enter it. He did not listen to it, unfortunately._

_When the shuttles entered slowly, chaos occurred faster than what his eyes could see. All he could remember was the teludav shutting down, horrified shouts of panic as the wormhole released an insane amount of power and almost destroyed Pidge's shuttle, almost destroyed her._

_Red. Everything was red._

Tightening his hold of her hand, the memory of her pale and almost lifeless body in his arms flashed through his mind. An uncomfortable shiver ran down his spine. It had been almost a week, a week of him watching a stupid machine count her heartbeat, hoping that her eyes would open with every rise of her heart rate. It was kind of ironic how just months ago, he was practically begging her to take a nap.

_"It's 2 am, Pidge."_

_"And?" Her hand continued to type something on her tablet before zooming in on a picture of the plant in front of her. Scanning it carefully, her eyes blinked slowly once, twice._

_Lance let out a sigh. "Sleep. Please?" He wrapped his arms around her from the back, resting his head on top of hers and his chin almost hitting the bobby pins he put on her hair earlier. "Come on, I'll let you hog both blankets tonight." He never restricted her from hogging any blanket ever. Why they had two was the result of Pidge hogging their blanket multiple nights, they decided to get another so they could have one each._ _She ended up hogging both of them._

_Putting down her tablet, she seemed to ease up, melting into his embrace. "Play with my hair until I fall asleep and you got yourself a deal."_

_Kissing her head, he couldn't help but chuckle. "Anything for you, hermosa."_

His eyes never left her petite form, he was so focused, desperately looking for signs of her awaking that he didn't even notice someone had entered the room.

"Lance, you should eat." He recognized the voice without looking.

"Maybe later, Veronica."

"You said that earlier." The sound of footsteps approached him. A hand then reached his shoulder but he didn't flinch. "Come on, she'll be okay."

They both knew it wasn't the truth, but it wasn't a lie either. Earth healing pods did so little to help her heal. All her physical bruises and cuts were nowhere to be seen, making her look like she was just taking a nap after a long day, but internal damages were still there and no one was sure when or _if_ she would wake up.

"I don't want her alone when she wakes up."

His sister sighed. "She'd want you to chose your health over her, you know?"

He flinched at her words.

 _Everyone was working hard to perfect everything for the mission, but Lance was working harder than anyone. He made sure to help in building the_ _teludav_ _in any way he could. He stayed up all day and night helping_ _Coran_ _and_ _Shiro_ _plan everything out as if the idea of rest did not exist. He would get frustrated whenever there was a day without progress, blaming himself for not trying hard enough, for letting Allura sacrifice herself in the first place._ _If he had only held her tighter, made her happy enough to stay._

_He was back to square one._

_He was losing himself and the people around him again._

_Even the one he cared about the most._

_"You don't understand, Pidge!"_ _Lance swung his arm like a mad man._

_"I do understand! We all want Allura back and we're doing everything we can as fast as our bodies can handle." She stepped closer, trying to soften her tone but failing miserably after the first word. "You're the one who used to tell me all the time that overworking is bad and shit while yours here obviously need some fucking rest. Stop being a hypocrite, Lance, you don't need to torture yourself like this!"_

_It was supposed to be a peaceful night. She invited him to her lab to help with some last minute adjustments for the mission. In the middle of progress, she suggested for them to take a break, get some sleep and continue tomorrow for a day was enough to get everything settled. On normal days, he would be relieved to know that his overworked significant other finally understood how important taking breaks were._

_T_ _hat night, he was the one who refused. One thing led to another and then they were screaming at each other as_ _if they weren't five feet apart._

_"You just don't want all of this to work, not as much as I do!"_ _His voice cracked._

 _"_ _Wha_ _– May I remind you that this mission was my idea! I'm the one working my butt off just to mimic an_ _altean_ _teludav, why the_ _quiznack would_ _you think I don't want this to work?"_

 _"I don't know, maybe_ _because once_ _Allura's_ _back, y_ _ou're afraid I'm gonna choose her over you?"_

_Pidge froze._

_T_ _he look of pure shock on her face calmed him down, but the tears forming in her eyes was what made him finally come to his senses. Realization hit and regret washed over him._

_"Katie..." He breathed, voice shaking, "That's not what I meant."_

_Her hands clenched so hard, nails could mark her skin. It looked like she was about to scream but took a deep breath instead._ _Fists_ _slowly opening, her eyes softened, trying to blink away the tears but ending up making them fall down her cheek._ _A lump formed in his throat_ _._

 _All he wanted to do right then was cup her face and wipe all her tears away. So he did._ _His heart dropped to his stomach_ _when she immediately pulled away_ _from his touch._

_"Don't worry, I've already accepted my faith as a fucking consolation price. What am I compared to your first love, right?" She held herself tightly the way she would whenever she was missing her family or losing hope during the war. The urge to embrace her got stronger but he held himself back._

_When he finally found his voice again, it came out unbelievably weak. "Consolation price? What, you think I'm using you as a rebound?"_

_"Am I not?" She_ _scoffed._

_"No!" The anger somehow came back. This time, it wasn't at her, but purely at himself and he couldn't do anything but scream it out. "Dammit, Katie, you think I would go that low? You're not a rebound! I've never–"_

_"Well, it doesn't feel like it! You barely talked to me these past few weeks and when you do, it's either about this mission or nothing else." Her voice cracked as well as something in his chest. Her shoulders were trembling then, more and more tears fell from her expressive eyes. "I trust that you wouldn't do something like that, Lance, I do. I just couldn't help but feel like I'm fifteen again, pining over a friend who couldn't fucking see me even though I'm right in front of them the whole time. It's like I'm back to square one and it sucks!"_

_An uncomfortable, heavy silence filled the room. Lance opened his mouth but nothing came out of it._

_She was feeling like that all this time and he didn't even notice. Even the small changes, were the bags under her eyes always that big? Why was her hair messier than usual? Oh, right. He would usually fix it for her whenever he would catch her at her lab during lunch time. When was the last time he had checked up on her? His chest got heavier as he realized that he couldn't remember._

_Pidge was not a consolation price. She was his everything, but he hadn't been treating her like she was and that made him sick. He didn't even realize he was crying until he looked down and the tears finally dropped._

_She broke the heavy silence with another humorless scoff. "Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if you do end up choosing her. I'm more concerned about you choosing her over your damn self again."_ _A beat. "You're important too, Lance. You don't have to break yourself."_

_Pidge aggressively rubbed her nose on the sleeve of her lab coat before walking away. Lance couldn't do anything but watch her back, leaving him feeling emptier than a void._

"It's my fault"

"No." Veronica pulled a chair beside her brother and looked him dead in the eye. "We talked about this. It wasn't your fault the teludav was unstable."

"Still, I shouldn't have let her go to that mission. I should have tried harder to reason with Shiro to let me join the team instead but I didn't!"

"Lance, listen to me, it is not your fault she chose to be a part of it."

His eyes started to sting. "It is. She knew the teludav wasn't a hundred percent safe, she knew Shiro would pick me to be on the mission, she knew and she took my place. God, I should have told her to stay when we met at the hangar–"

"There was no other choice, she knew every part of the shuttles and the teludav more than any of us. We all knew it wasn't a hundred percent safe and it would never be because of how primitive earth technology is, that's why we only put three people in the mission. We had to take risks."

Risking her life for another wasn't worth it, even if it was Allura. The Princess sacrificed herself just for them to live, it would go against everything that she did for the universe if even one of them give up their life. He would rather have all his efforts go to waste than lose Pidge. Not once did he not regret how it took him almost losing her just for him to realize this.

_Minutes before the mission, Lance found himself walking to the shuttle's hangar. It could be his imagination but his feet were heavier than usual._

_Still, he wanted to see her._

_It was only yesterday when they had their big fight but that didn't mean their little tradition shouldn't be done. It was kind of their thing whenever one of them was part of a mission or just having a trip, whether out of town or out of earth, they would do something sappy. If they were in a public place like an airport, the one getting left behind would have to create a scene, pretending like they haven't confessed their feelings and they got to before the other could get on the plane, just like in every classic 2000s romcom which both Lance and Pidge were a fan of. Though, Pidge just liked them only because they were easy to make fun of._

_Whenever they were alone, though, they would just give each other_ see you later _kisses until one of them really had to go._

_Perhaps they wouldn't be able to do that right then because of their recent misunderstandings, but he at least wanted to wish her a safe flight._

_Pidge in her old Voltron uniform was the first thing he saw when he entered the hangar._ _Earth armors were no where near as advance as the Altean ones so the former paladins had the smart decision to keep theirs in case of highly dangerous missions like this happening.  
_

_His heart skipped a beat at the sight. It was weird yet somehow nostalgic seeing her in that green armor again. In a way, she looked different yet still wonderfully the same. She grew a little taller, had a little more figure, but she still had those big curious eyes and short hair, though, a little less choppy. Many have praised her "glow up," saying things like late puberty really turned her from an ugly duckling to a swan. This claim had always confused Lance because for him, she had always been beautiful._

_"Hey."_

_She turned to him, helmet in hand, with wide eyes as if his presence was unexpected. "Lance, hi."_

_"Everything settled?" He took a careful step closer._

_"_ _Mhm_ _. Just waiting for Shiro's command."_

_For the the first time in forever, Lance was at lost for words. Usually, this would be the time he would give her a big hug and kiss her everywhere, but the atmosphere was telling him otherwise. The fight was still fresh for both of them and he could tell just by the way she was avoiding his eyes. They weren't screaming, though, that was a good sign._

_He found his voice again after a moment. "You're not gonna tie your hair back?"_

_At this point, he was just desperate for any conversation to happen. His question was genuine, though. After the war, Pidge specifically chose to keep her hair short. She tried growing it out the first few months of post Voltron but with all the Garrison work and the stress of rebuilding earth, she really didn't have time to take care of her hair._

_Whenever she wouldn't have the time to chop it off, she would just stick to tying it half up half down. Sometimes, Lance would help her out and play with her hair, doing small braids and styling which both of them enjoyed. He'd usually style it in a way that her bangs wouldn't bother her._

_Pidge blew her bangs away from her face. "I mean, it would get messed up by the helmet anyway."_

_"You sure? You're not gonna throw a tantrum once your bangs fall on your face in a difficult situation?" He was already searching his pockets for bobby pins. There were two._

_She let out a hearty laugh for the first time since yesterday and he had never felt so blessed. "That I won't guarantee."_

_"Can I?"_

_"Yes, please."_

_Lance then grabbed a bobby pin and carefully put her bangs away from her face. He used his teeth to open up a pin before securing it on her hair. "There." He said, gently tucking a side of hair to her ear._

_Their eyes met. "Thanks." She said softly._

_For a moment, he thought she was going to say something. Lance himself was hesitant to even move even though he was dying to kiss her right then and there. If only the weight of yesterday's argument could be thrown away even just for a second, he would hold her tight in his arms and tell her how sorry he was, but something was telling him that it wasn't the time... or was it? "Katie..."_

_"5 minutes before take off! Team, time to get on the shuttles." Shiro's voice bombarded the speakers in the hangar._

_Pidge took a deep breath. "Well, I better go." She gave a small smile._

_"Y–Yeah. Yeah, of course."_

_After a beat, she gave him a nod and immediately turned back. Lance's hand itched, he wanted nothing more but to grab her hand and pull her in his arms but she was already walking away. She wasn't gonna turn back and his heart sunk at the thought._

_His fist clenched. Perhaps the atmosphere wasn't right, the fight was still clear in their heads but they were adults god dammit, they were better than this, Lance was better than this. If he wanted to say something then he would._

_He was about to open his mouth when she suddenly stopped. Dropping her helmet, Pidge ran to his arms, wrapping her short ones around his neck. He held her with all his strength, burying his face onto her shoulder._

_It was just like the movies but better. Maybe they weren't gonna break tradition after all._

_"You couldn't resist me, huh?" He asked fondly and felt her chuckle._

_"Obviously"_

_A moment later, they finally pulled away yet stayed so close as if it would be a sin to move away even just a little._

_"I'm gonna bring her back." Pidge said, looking straight into his eyes. There was determination in her voice and it somehow scared him for a reason he couldn't tell._

_He cupped her face tenderly. "Just promise you'll come back safely too, yeah?"_

_"Lance..."_

_"Please."_

_A heavy sigh, then a nod. "If– When I come back, we're gonna fix this, fix us, okay?"_

_Lance kissed her forehead as a subtle promise. "We will."_

"I love you, Katie." He didn't say it the last time and it was another thing to add to Lance's list of biggest regrets.

He tightened his hold of her hand. Lance was both quite vocal and physical when showing affection to someone, but with Pidge, it was a little different. They had this unspoken rule that _I love yous_ would only be said during intimate moments and never used as an indirect good bye. Not once did they said it during their sappy _see you later_ shenanigans.

She wanted their I love yous to be special and he respected that. Sometimes though, he really just wanted scream it to the world. In this case, he would say it to her multiple times in hopes of her getting annoyed unconsciously and waking up to maybe pout at him. He really was desperate.

They were alone once again. Veronica left a while ago to get some food. It took a lot of convincing, but he eventually agreed to at least have some snack only because Hunk was back on earth and was preparing some food for everyone. Hunk knew about what happened prior to his visit and was as- or even more -devastated as everyone. He went to check on Pidge three days after the incident and of course, a few tears were shed, but he immediately forced himself to get his crap together because he believed- knew she would be okay. Lance had been telling himself the same thing over and over again. For the first few days, he was full of hope but as the days passed, it started to fade slowly.

Lance gave her hand a soft kiss. "I love you so much. Please, hermosa, wake up and say it back."

Pidge was stubborn.

Every doctor said the chances of her waking up after the incident was little to none. Her heart rate wasn't supposed to rise, she wasn't supposed to move and open her eyes, weakly hold his hand back and call out his name softly.

But she did, he was glad she did.

For Lance, it felt like they were back to square one and surely this time, he would use this fresh start to do everything that he wasn't able to. 

Starting with loving her better.

**Author's Note:**

> this is purely self indulgent literally i just mashed up every stupid trope and cliches i want in a fic. ne ways leave a kudos if u like it and/or tell me what u think! :DD


End file.
